Happy New Year! Yes, we went over the Fiscal Thingy, and just like we said, it turns out to have been fixable retroactively all along. Not that the traditional media is giving up on the metaphor, since they're reporting we somehow "averted" turning the calendar over without a deal in place, which we all know was the case. Whatever, Cheeto munchers! Greg Dworkin joined in for the "Republicans in disarray" discussion, noting the abandonment of the "Hastert rule" (which never really was a rule, anyway), not to mention the abandonment of the idea that actually doing something about the defecit is an important issue. Then we took a little look through the news as a way of commenting on the familiar counters in the ongoing gun debate, i.e., that people say they buy guns to protect themselves and their families, and that they are, after all, responsible gun owners. All of which have an element of truth, of course. But if taking a "comprehensive look" at gun issues can be said to necessitate looking at violent video games, then surely a "comprehensive look" must also require acknowledging how often people are shot with their own guns, how often they end up shooting family members or friends with those guns, and how often even responsible gun owners seem to forget that a gun with the magazine out isn't actually a gun that isn't loaded. Finally, we tied up some loose ends with a little technical tour of the mechanics of what made people think there really was a "cliff" involved in the Fiscal Thingy.
